The Shackles of Categorization

There are many types of people whom I find insufferable. People who lack any amount of empathy. People who automatically judge other people without getting to know them. People who say you owe them because they are your "friend". But even though I would never actively or consciously seek out their company, it is still my duty as a human being to interact with them, at least passively, and allow them a chance to better themselves through real human interaction (I'm not saying that people who interact with me always come out better for it, that's way to narcissistic for even me, but that social interaction is always a chance to pull yourself up the ladder of your life).


And people who just brush off these people who they deem "strange", "weird", or "undesirable" are merely humans in a biological sense, and they never actually look past themselves to help that girl who sat next to them in Biology for a whole semester and a half until one day she didn't come back and now she's gone and they could have helped her but they didn't. And who defines what is strange anyway? I think we can all agree that categorizing people never works. I mean, come on. You can't slap a generic label and neatly place everyone into nice little categories. That's just a few steps away from the feudal system, and there was only massive cultural, economical, political and scientific oppression for about a thousand years. And we continue to do it. Look around. Labels like "Democrat"and "Republican", "rich"and "poor", "smart" and "dumb" are prolific, and immensely destructive to any cross-class social bonding.
            

One of the major reasons that we continue to shackle ourselves to the raging machine of society is because stereotyping is such an affective marketing tool. I'm not saying that it's entirely the company's fault. It's ours too, for standing, oblivious to the walls being built and gaps being made between human beings. It's gone a little too far.

Now, I'm not calling for total anarchy. I'm not a pot-smoking 70s hippie holding up a peace sign. A little class distinction is ok. It allows us to think subjectively, and therefore to focus on the bigger picture. But to allow it to overcome us to the point where Hollywood uses class separation as one of the key elements in it's movies is a bit much. A proper balance should be found, met, and sustained. Where that balance is is for each generation to decide. They should just know what to look for first.